Principal Investigator(s):Finckenauer, James O., Rutgers State University, School of Criminal Justice; Waring, Elin, Rutgers State University, School of Criminal Justice

Summary:

The goal of this study was to assess the nature and scope
of Soviet emigre crime in the United States, with a special focus on
the question of whether and how well this crime was organized. The
research project was designed to overcome the lack of reliable and
valid knowledge on Soviet emigre crime networks through the systematic
collection, evaluation, and analysis of information. In Part 1, the
researchers conducted a national survey of 750 law enforcement
specialists and prosecutors to get a general overview of Soviet emigre
crime in... (more info)

The goal of this study was to assess the nature and scope
of Soviet emigre crime in the United States, with a special focus on
the question of whether and how well this crime was organized. The
research project was designed to overcome the lack of reliable and
valid knowledge on Soviet emigre crime networks through the systematic
collection, evaluation, and analysis of information. In Part 1, the
researchers conducted a national survey of 750 law enforcement
specialists and prosecutors to get a general overview of Soviet emigre
crime in the United States. For Parts 2-14, the researchers wanted to
look particularly at the character, operations, and structure, as well
as the criminal ventures and enterprises, of Soviet emigre crime
networks in the New York-New Jersey-Pennsylvania region. They were
also interested in any international criminal connections to these
networks, especially with the former Soviet Union. The investigators
focused particularly on identifying whether these particular networks
met the following criteria commonly used to define organized crime:
(1) some degree of hierarchical structure within the network, (2)
continuity of that structure over time, (3) use of corruption and
violence to facilitate and protect criminal activities, (4) internal
discipline within the network structure, (5) involvement in multiple
criminal enterprises that are carried out with a degree of criminal
sophistication, (6) involvement in legitimate businesses, and (7)
bonding among participants based upon shared ethnicity. Data for Parts
2-14 were collected from a collaborative effort with the Tri-State
Joint Project on Soviet Emigre Organized Crime. From 1992 through 1995
every investigative report or other document produced by the project
was entered into a computer file that became the database for the
network analysis. Documents included undercover observation and
surveillance reports, informant interviews, newspaper articles,
telephone records, intelligence files from other law enforcement
agencies, indictments, and various materials from the former Soviet
Union. Every individual, organization, and other entity mentioned in a
document was considered an actor, given a code number, and entered
into the database. The investigators then used network analysis to
measure ties among individuals and organizations and to examine the
structure of the relationships among the entries in the database. In
Part 1, National Survey of Law Enforcement and Prosecutors Data, law
enforcement officials and prosecutors were asked if their agency had
any contact with criminals from the former Soviet Union, the types of
criminal activity these people were involved in, whether they thought
these suspects were part of a criminal organization, whether this type
of crime was a problem for the agency, whether the agency had any
contact with governmental agencies in the former Soviet Union, and
whether anyone on the staff spoke Russian. Part 2, Actor
Identification Data, contains the network identification of each actor
coded from the documents in Part 3 and identified in the network data
in Parts 4-14. An actor could be an individual, organization, concept,
or location. Information in Part 2 includes the unique actor
identification number, the type of actor, and whether the actor was a
"big player." Part 3, Sources of Data, contains data on the documents
that were the sources of the network data in Parts 4-14. Variables
include the title and date of document, the type of document, and
whether the following dimensions of organized crime were mentioned:
sources of capital, locational decisions, advertising, price setting,
financial arrangements, recruitment, internal structure, corruption,
or overlapping partnerships. Parts 4-14 contain the coding of the ties
among actors in particular types of documents, and are named for them:
indictments, tips, investigative reports, incident reports, search
reports, interview reports, arrest reports, intelligence reports,
criminal acts reports, confidential informant reports, newspaper
reports, social surveillance reports, other surveillance reports, and
company reports.

Access Notes

Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions.
Please log in so we can determine if you are with a member institution and have
access to these data files.

One or more files in this collection have special restrictions
; consult the
restrictions note to learn more.

The data are restricted from general
dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete
a Data Transfer Agreement Form and specify the reasons for the
request. A copy of the Data Transfer Agreement Form can be requested
by calling 800-999-0960 or 734-647-5000. The Data Transfer Agreement
Form is also available as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file from
the NACJD Web site at
<a href="http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/Private/private.pdf">
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/Private/private.pdf</a>. Completed
forms should be returned to: Director, National Archive of Criminal
Justice Data, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social
Research, Institute for Social Research, P.O. Box 1248, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, or by fax: 734-647-8200.

This study is provided by ICPSR.
ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis
for a diverse and expanding social science research community.

Dataset(s)

WARNING: Because this study has many datasets, the download all files option has been suppressed, and you will need to download one dataset at a time.

Scope of Study

Unit of Observation:
Part 1: Jurisdictions. Parts 2-14: Actors, defined
as individuals, organizations, or other entities.

Universe:
Part 1: Law enforcement agencies and prosecutor's offices
in the United States. Parts 2-14: Actors, defined as individuals,
organizations, or other entities, mentioned in documentation for the
Tri-State Joint Project on Soviet Emigre Organized Crime.

Data Types:
Part 1: survey data, Parts 2-14: event/transaction data

Data Collection Notes:

The user guide and the codebook and data collection
instruments are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF)
files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated
and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe
Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat
Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
Questions and concerns about whether there is
Soviet emigre organized crime in the United States have been prevalent
since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Reliable and valid
knowledge to answer these questions has, however, been severely
limited. This research project was designed to overcome this
limitation through the systematic collection, evaluation, and analysis
of information on Soviet emigre crime in the United States. The goal
of the study was to assess the nature and scope of Soviet emigre
crime, with a special focus on the question of whether and how well
this crime was organized. In Part 1, the researchers conducted a
national survey of law enforcement specialists and prosecutors to get
a general overview of Soviet emigre crime in the United States. For
Parts 2-14, the researchers wanted to look particularly at the
character, operations, and structure, as well as the criminal ventures
and enterprises, of Soviet emigre crime networks in the New York-New
Jersey-Pennsylvania region. They were also interested in any
international criminal connections to these networks, especially with
the former Soviet Union. The investigators focused particularly on
identifying whether these particular networks met the following
criteria commonly used to define organized crime: (1) some degree of
hierarchical structure within the network, (2) continuity of that
structure over time, (3) use of corruption and violence to facilitate
and protect criminal activities, (4) internal discipline within the
network structure, (5) involvement in multiple criminal enterprises
that are carried out with a degree of criminal sophistication, (6)
involvement in legitimate businesses, and (7) bonding among
participants based upon shared ethnicity.

Study Design:
To get a general idea of how familiar United
States law enforcement agents and prosecutors were with Soviet emigre
crime, the researchers administered a mail-back survey to over 750 law
enforcement officials and prosecutors in the United States for Part
1. Data for Parts 2-14 were collected from a collaborative effort with
the Tri-State Joint Project on Soviet Emigre Organized Crime. This
project was created in 1992 to mount a joint intelligence,
investigative, and prosecutorial effort against this particular type
of organized crime. In exchange for access to the investigative
materials collected by the project, the principal investigators
developed and managed a computerized database and assumed
responsibility for preparing reports for the project. From 1992
through 1995 every investigative report or other document produced by
the project was entered into a computer file that became the database
for the network analysis. Documents included undercover observation
and surveillance reports, informant interviews, newspaper articles,
telephone records, intelligence files from other law enforcement
agencies, indictments, and various materials from the former Soviet
Union. Every individual, organization, and other entity mentioned in a
document was given a code number and entered into the database. The
investigators then used network analysis to measure ties among
individuals and organizations and to examine the structure of the
relationships among the entries in the database.

Description of Variables:
In Part 1, National Survey of Law Enforcement and
Prosecutors Data, law enforcement officials and prosecutors were asked
if their agency had any contact with criminals from the former Soviet
Union, the types of criminal activity these people were involved in,
whether they thought these suspects were part of a criminal
organization, whether this type of crime was a problem for the agency,
whether the agency had any contact with governmental agencies in the
former Soviet Union, and whether anyone on the staff spoke
Russian. Part 2, Actor Identification Data, contains the network
identification of each actor coded from the documents in Part 3 and
identified in the network data in Parts 4-14. An actor could be an
individual, organization, concept, or location. Information in Part 2
includes the unique actor identification number, the type of actor,
and whether the actor was a "big player." Part 3, Sources of Data,
contains data on the documents that were the sources of the network
data in Parts 4-14. Variables include the title and date of document,
the type of document, and whether the following dimensions of
organized crime were mentioned: sources of capital, locational
decisions, advertising, price setting, financial arrangements,
recruitment, internal structure, corruption, or overlapping
partnerships. Parts 4-14 contain the coding of the ties among actors
in particular types of documents, and are named for them: indictments,
tips, investigative reports, incident reports, search reports,
interview reports, arrest reports, intelligence reports, criminal acts
reports, confidential informant reports, newspaper reports, social
surveillance reports, other surveillance reports, and company
reports.

Response Rates:
Part 1: The individual response rate was 64.5
percent and the agency response rate was 77.8 percent.

Presence of Common Scales:
None.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2001-03-26

Version History:

2006-03-30 File UG2594.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2006-03-30 File CB2594.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

Download Statistics

Located within ICPSR, NACJD is sponsored by the
Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice, and the Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

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Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of
the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its
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